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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325981">Time &amp; Tide</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketsizedquasar/pseuds/pocketsizedquasar'>pocketsizedquasar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Moby Dick - Herman Melville</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, Religious Imagery &amp; Symbolism, murder time!, queequeg and ishmael adopt pip and you can't change my mind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:34:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,691</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325981</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketsizedquasar/pseuds/pocketsizedquasar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Yet there is hope. Time and tide flow wide."<br/>An alternate universe where Starbuck actually goes through with killing Ahab, saving everyone in the process. Here is what comes after.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Captain Ahab/Starbuck (Moby Dick), Ishmael/Queequeg (Moby Dick)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Time &amp; Tide</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> “Is heaven a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed? And would I be a murderer, then, if—”</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Starbuck pulls the trigger, and it tears a hole right through him.</p><p>There's a bang, a crash, a sound like judgment, a sound like vengeance. For several minutes, the only thing that tells him the sound is the gun and not the thunder outside is his finger, still curled tight round the trigger like a line round a mast. Round a neck. </p><p>Then the ringing. Dull and lifeless, echoing in his ears, pumping through his veins, thrumming in his wrists, beat by resonant beat. The lantern, swinging, light glinting off the smoking barrel. The metal tang of sulphur and blood on his tongue.</p><p>He waits.</p><p>For what, he doesn't know.</p><p>For heaven to strike him down, a life for a life. Two lives for thirty. Murderer for murderer, sin for sinner. For the captain to burst from the bedroom, angry and alive, striking him down. Starbuck waits for the ringing to stop, the aching to fade, the smoke to curl away into nothing.</p><p>He waits for the sea to grow calm.</p><p>That's what's supposed to happen, isn't it? When the pious crew throws blasphemous Jonah overboard. When he sinks and is swallowed up by his sin, knowing that his dreadful punishment is just. Not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. Jonah drowns and the sea grows calm. Jonah is shot and the storm abates.</p><p>The storm does not.</p><p> </p><p>Starbuck replaces the gun. Leaves the room.</p><p>The lantern swings behind him.</p><p> </p><p><em> You did the right thing </em>.</p><p>He gets no sleep that night. Rolls with the sea in his stateroom, repeating to himself, over and over again.</p><p><em> You did the right thing </em>.</p><p>He knows he is right.</p><p> </p><p>He half-expects to see his captain next morning, strutting from the cabin below, tap-thudding his way across the ship, digging his ivory leg into its hole on the quarterdeck. He doesn't think he would be surprised.</p><p>No one comments on the captain's absence for most of the day. The crew is no stranger to his odd habits, and he is known to disappear for days at a time, so it is not until midday that Mr. Stubb remarks in passing, "Wonder what the old man is up to now."</p><p>Starbuck swallows lead in his throat.</p><p>Mr. Starbuck, ever the planner, ever the cautious, ever the pragmatic, has no idea what to do now. He realizes with a sickening wrench that he has not planned this. Has no idea how to bring it up. Should he feign discovery? Send someone to fetch the captain? Surely someone will notice, eventually. Surely Mr. Stubb, knocking on his stateroom door, would investigate the ensuing silence. Surely Fleece, the old cook, would call the captain to supper, would wonder at the empty response.</p><p>Surely someone would find the body. Broken and bleeding.</p><p> </p><p>It is Pip who finds the body.</p><p>Ah.</p><p>Of course.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone hears the cabin-boy scream. It sends a chill up the <em> Pequod </em>'s masts, all the way up to her cross-trees, all the way down to her rotten hold, through her spine, her keel, her skeleton, her frame. Even the harpooners, brave and perpetually bemused, suppress a shudder.</p><p>Starbuck is below instantly, a jabbering Stubb and irritated Flask close behind him.</p><p>Stubb, of course, rambles apathetically about the poor cabin-boy's idiocy. His ridiculous habits. His cowardice. His insanity. They enter the captain's stateroom to find Pip kneeling by the swung-open door to his cabin.</p><p>"Ah, what's that frightened little 'bama boy up to this--?" he chokes on his words.</p><p> </p><p>Because there is Ahab. Gore splattered on the wall behind him. A hole in his skull, the pillow stained, his hair thick and matted with dried blood. Ahab, ungodly, godlike Ahab, splayed across the bed like a ragdoll with a hole in his head and -- Starbuck sucks in a breath as the words <em> Good shot </em> fire off in his brain -- here is <em> Ahab </em> , grand, terrifying, blasphemous old Ahab, Ahab, the man cut away at the stake, <em> Ahab </em> , iron-willed and iron-railed, here is <em> that </em> Ahab, half-dressed and limp in his bed and smelling vaguely of rot and sweat.</p><p>Stubb is already moving. Fuming, swears and slurs spilling from his tongue like the smoke from his pipe as he moves to grab Pip, and everything is slowed and Starbuck can feel his tongue in his throat as Stubb wrestles the boy by the arm because of course, of course he was the one to find the captain, of course, of course, how convenient, how perfect a scapegoat, how easy, that Stubb should find this little Black boy over the body of their captain and assume the worst, and Starbuck hears his blood in his brain, and Stubb is raising his hand to strike the boy, and God, great God, everything is too slow, and Pip is screaming again, and God, there’s a clatter of footsteps in the cabin behind him, and God, Pip is shrinking away from Stubb, not even lifting his hands in defense and--"<em> Stop-- </em>" but his voice is too small and who is he, Starbuck, Mr. Starbuck, who are you, are you an officer? are you a whaler? where is your courage, your tenacity, now? what is any of it good for? and so he tries again and this time yells--</p><p>"<em> Stop! </em>"</p><p>He grabs Stubb by the wrist. Stubb's head snaps up to Starbuck, rage burning in his eyes.</p><p>"Mr. Stubb," Starbuck says, willing his voice to steady. "You forget yourself. Let him be."</p><p>Stubb stares, furious, breathing heavily, unblinking.</p><p>He lets Pip's hand go. The boy crumples to the floor, shivering, sobbing.</p><p>"Mr. Starbuck?" A voice from outside. That greenhand, ever cautious and curious. "Mr. Stubb? Is everything--?"</p><p>"On deck," Starbuck says, firmly.</p><p>A pause, then a quiet shuffling of feet. He knows there are more outside, he knows his crew is waiting for him, waiting for an answer, he knows they deserve it, knows he will have to give it to them eventually, but not now.</p><p>"The captain is <em> dead </em>," Stubb hisses, and jabs his thumb in Pip's direction, "what would you have us do about it?"</p><p>There's a long pause, punctuated only by the cabin-boy's choking sobs.</p><p>"It wasn't him."</p><p>Flask, who up until now had been staring at Ahab's bloodied head with quiet reticence, snaps his eyes up to Starbuck's.</p><p>"How do you know?"</p><p>Starbuck stares down his second and third mate. He could lie, he knows. No one would question him. Starbuck the good, the pious, the devout, Starbuck, the voice of reason, could very well lie. He tastes blood and realizes he has been biting his tongue. The air is thick with the smell of it, with the sound of their breathing, with the sound of Pip whimpering. </p><p>A quiet agreement passes between the three men. Stubb, having spilled out his pipe in the frenzy, fumbles in his pockets for a lighter and takes a long drag. Flask swallows audibly. There is something a little like terror, a little like understanding, a little like awe, in their eyes. The unspoken confession settles around them like dust.</p><p>The bullet-hole in the door. The gun, still visible on its rack in the stateroom outside. Cold and gleaming. Starbuck, shaking and gritting his teeth. The captain. Broken and bled dry.</p><p>"Mr. Stubb," Starbuck says, slowly, "see to it the carpenter prepares another coffin. For the captain. He shan't be buried in a hammock and tossed to the sharks. We may give him that much." Stubb starts, but Starbuck continues over him. "Mr. Flask, have the helmsman bring the ship about, and square the yards. There's a westward wind, and we'll ride her home."</p><p>He flicks his eyes between the two of them.</p><p>Finally, Stubb ducks his head in a nod. "Aye, sir." He hesitates. "Aye, Captain."</p><p>And then Stubb and Flask are gone.</p><p> </p><p>Starbuck looks at the child on the floor beside him. Pip is, as has been his wont since Stubb abandoned him at sea, muttering to himself.</p><p>Starbuck wrestles for a long moment, then turns and leaves.</p><p><em> You did the right thing </em>.</p><p>He knows he is right.</p><p> </p><p>The<em> Pequod </em> is quiet when he re-emerges on deck, save for the banging of the carpenter's unseen hammer. Starbuck feels eyes on him as he makes his way to the bow, standing startlingly near Ahab's usual place on the quarterdeck. They know, he knows. They all must know. He looks at none of them. Stares at the setting sun as dusk paints the sky black and blue.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> "You did the right thing, you know." </em>
</p><p>Starbuck jolts awake.</p><p>He'd heard it this time, he's sure. Heard it out loud. He rubs his temples and blinks his bleary eyes against the dark of his own stateroom. Though he was, technically, now acting Captain of the <em> Pequod </em>, he refused to enter the captain's quarters. Something about sleeping in the bed of a dead man -- sleeping in the bed of a man he'd murdered.</p><p><em> A man who was </em> supposed <em> to be dead </em>, Starbuck thinks, realizing the source of the voice.</p><p>Because there is the captain, sitting on the edge of his bunk, and Starbuck nearly leaps from his bed onto the floor because there is the <em> captain </em>, hole in his skull and blood matting the side of his hair flat, looking at him curiously with those same tired eyes. The lightning scar rippling on his skin. </p><p>
  <em> “Didn’t know you had it in you.” </em>
</p><p>Starbuck rubs his eyes violently, blinks several times, and the captain is gone.</p><p>He staggers his way out of his stateroom, onto the deck, forces himself not to meet any of the crew's eyes.</p><p>"I buried you," he murmurs, snatching a lantern hanging against the mast, "I put you in that coffin and I buried you in the sea. You are a hundred miles behind us. I buried you."</p><p>He nearly collides with a sailor on watch, the lantern almost spilling from his hands before he catches it.</p><p>"Mr. Starbuck?"</p><p>It's the greenhand. Starbuck's bowsman. Good at his job, for his inexperience. Starbuck appreciates the man's quiet presence on the hunt. Works hard and complains little. Young and bright-eyed and full of stories and life and a love that he thinks is much subtler than it really is. He looks up at Starbuck now with gentle concern. "Is--is everything all right?"</p><p>It takes several seconds for Starbuck to find his voice. "Yes. Apologies. I was not--" He straightens, cursing himself. A captain does not apologize.</p><p>The greenhand studies him warily.</p><p>"Mr. Starbuck, if I may--"</p><p>Starbuck hisses in a breath. The greenhand flinches.</p><p>"I'm sorry."</p><p>Starbuck blinks.</p><p>"I'm sorry, sir. About the captain." He averts his eyes. "I know -- I know you were close."</p><p><em> Observant bastard </em>, Starbuck thinks, before admonishing himself for the language. Instead, he says, "Thank you."</p><p>Neither of them speak for several minutes. The greenhand fiddles with his shirtsleeve.</p><p>"I don't know if it was right," he says. "What you did."</p><p>Starbuck grows restless, a retort building in him, "Now--"</p><p>"I don't know if it was right," the greenhand continues, with a boldness that probably surprises them both, "but I -- I thank you." Starbuck blinks. "What you did. It probably saved -- saved us." He averts his eyes again, and Starbuck doesn't need to be particularly observant to guess who he is referring to. "Perhaps it was wrong. But I am--not <em> glad </em> , but..." and he pauses, thinking. Always chooses his words carefully, this one. "I am... <em> thankful </em>. That it happened. That we are -- safe. All of us."</p><p>He's gone before Starbuck can think of a response.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> "You did the right thing." </em>
</p><p>This time he wakes up to the Captain poring over the charts on Starbuck's tiny desk, that same curious look on his face.</p><p>He looks up when Starbuck sits in his bunk, and they lock eyes.</p><p>
  <em> "I would have dragged this ship and everyone in it down with me." </em>
</p><p>"I know," Starbuck whispers.</p><p>Ahab chuckles, his dead glassy eyes still set on Starbuck's.</p><p>
  <em> "Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck." </em>
</p><p>He doesn't respond.</p><p>Ahab cocks his head, and the faint moonlight scattered through the deck prism above shines on the hole in his skull, all white bone and viscera and pink, bloody brain. The blood in his hair is wet, fresh; it glints bright against the darkness.</p><p>"What do you want?" Nothing. "Is this my punishment? Is this my judgment?"</p><p><em> "What was her name again?" </em> Ahab says, handling a spyglass that had been on the desk. <em> "That wife of thine." </em></p><p>"Don't!" Starbuck jumps to the floor, but the captain is gone.</p><p>He sinks against his bunk and sobs.</p><p> </p><p>When he dreams he dreams the captain is alive.</p><p>Starbuck dreams he replaced the gun without firing a round. Dreams he returned to the deck, quiet and shivering. Dreams of everything after -- of a man mounting the masthead in the White Whale's waters and falling, drowning, of a life-buoy thrown out and then sunk, of Pip, crying for help. Dreams of Pip, finding solace in Ahab, dreams of Ahab, finding solace in Pip. He dreams of a life-buoy made from a coffin, dreams of whaleboats, stove to splinters. Dreams of that old Parsi, Fedallah, dead and half torn and lashed to the whale's side, taunting them all even in death. Dreams the ship is a hearse and dreams him going down with it.</p><p>In dreams, the captain's voice is mocking.</p><p>
  <em> See, Starbuck? Look here. You did the right thing. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The ship is less quiet, as time moves on. Life picks up on deck again. Sailors dance around atop the fo'c'sle, pass pipes round in circles, tell stories. The mastheads spot a small pod of whales on their way south in the Pacific, and there's a brief moment, a shiver of doubt -- "Shall we lower, Mr. Starbuck?" -- before things are normal again.</p><p>Starbuck knows it is not a captain's place to partake in the whalehunts, knows a captain is far too valuable to leave the ship on such a dangerous endeavor, had criticized Ahab on more than one occasion for his reckless endangerment of his own life.</p><p>He thinks he understands now, though.</p><p>The <em> Pequod </em>, as best she can, returns to normal. The only evidence anything is wrong is the empty stateroom. The hole from Ahab's leg, still bored into its place on the quarterdeck.</p><p> </p><p>And Pip.</p><p>Pip has long given up his tambourine. Even before Ahab's murder. He brought it out once, for Queequeg's coffin, and once more, for the captain's. He does little now but sit on deck, or below, muttering to himself with a far-off look in his eyes. Some try to help -- Starbuck has more than once found Queequeg and his storyteller, that greenhand, coaxing the boy to speak, has more than once found Fleece, perhaps out of some kind of solidarity, coaxing the boy to eat.</p><p>Others are less kind. Mr. Stubb and some of the other crew have more than once callously remarked on his uselessness, wondering aloud if he would better serve them thrown overboard.</p><p>Pip is the only one who still enters the captain's cabin, and Starbuck doesn't have the heart to tell him to stop. He'll find the cabin boy in there, kneeling by the door to the bedroom, still murmuring strange statements to no one. Starbuck doesn't know what the boy is saying; no one can make sense of it. But on this ship homeward bound, with her belly full of oil and her crew's hearts full of song, on this damned ship with her heathen crew and her empty cabin, he thinks he feels some sort of kinship with this wayward child.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> "Would you have done it differently?" </em>
</p><p>The captain is sitting on Starbuck's bed when he enters his room. He slams the door shut and pointedly refuses to look at him.</p><p>
  <em> "Do you regret killing me, Mr. Starbuck?" </em>
</p><p>He shuffles through the papers on his deck, finding his logbook and flipping to a new entry.</p><p><em> "I don't blame you." </em> Starbuck can feel those curious, dead eyes on him. <em> "Do you blame me?" </em></p><p>"No," Starbuck huffs, knocking over a jar of ink in his frustration. It stains the logbook, smothering the last two entries. He stares at Ahab, at the sunlight shining off the blood on his forehead, on his face, in his hair. "No, I do not blame you, Captain."</p><p>
  <em> "Do you blame yourself?" </em>
</p><p>Starbuck is silent.</p><p>
  <em> "Do you blame the whale?" </em>
</p><p>He swallows.</p><p>
  <em> "You do, don't you? What was it you said? 'Vengeance on a dumb brute'? 'It seems blasphemous'?" </em>
</p><p>"Stop it."</p><p>
  <em> "Do you blame God?" </em>
</p><p>"I said <em> stop it! </em>" He flings his logbook at Ahab. The captain disappears and it thuds loudly against the wall behind him.</p><p> </p><p>They are only months from home now.</p><p>It seems like a small thing to celebrate, still being months and months away, but months and not years is a good thing, and the <em> Pequod </em> has just emerged from around the Cape of Good Hope, fleeing its stormy, tumultuous waters, and three long years of unforgiving chase yielded to that first break of sunlight in weeks, and all of this is enough to make Starbuck feel something like hope again.</p><p><em> Hope </em>.</p><p>He'd thought killing the captain would cure him of his dread. Of that inscrutable emptiness deep in his gut whenever he thought about their voyage, their captain, their unbreakable vow. It hadn’t, really.</p><p>But this. This burst of sunlight through the rainclouds, like heaven's pillars holding up the sky, like God's radiance after the flood. This was something new.</p><p> </p><p>The Ahab who survived was much kinder than the Ahab that didn't.</p><p>In his dreams, Starbuck still sees the world where Ahab lives. He sees a world where they hunt and fight and try to kill the White Whale to the last. A world where Ahab lives and a world where Ahab <em> gives </em> -- to Pip, and to Starbuck. Where he, at the very least, tries. </p><p>It is still not enough. </p><p>In his dreams Starbuck sees a final, brilliant day. Clear, still-blue sky and sea. All-pervading azure, transparently pure and soft.</p><p>He sees Ahab. And this Ahab, for perhaps the first time in their whole journey, seems to see him.</p><p>And they talk. Ahab shares, Ahab gives, gives Starbuck a story, a story of a man he once was and a wife and child he left behind and in that story there is the promise of a man he could be and a wife and child he could see again and in that story, in hearing that story, in being <em> given </em> this by Ahab, Starbuck feels what for this whole damned dream-voyage he has not: hope.</p><p><em> "Stand close to me, Starbuck;" </em> this Ahab says, <em> "let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God." </em></p><p>It is still not enough. In this dream, with this Ahab. He is still not enough.</p><p>
  <em> "Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away! See, see! the boy’s face from the window! the boy’s hand on the hill!” </em>
</p><p>But Ahab, oh Ahab. Ahab turns away.</p><p>
  <em> Oh, captain, my captain. We were so close. </em>
</p><p>Even at his kindest. Even at his softest.</p><p>It is still not enough.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> "Why did you do it?" </em>
</p><p>This time he is not cruel, or callous. Not terrifying. Not blank and empty. He is soft. Perhaps frightened.</p><p>He sits on the couch in his stateroom. Starbuck is in the captain's cabin for the first time in many months. Sifting through Ahab's belongings. Going over the captain's logbook. He and the other officers will need to discuss what they will tell the <em> Pequod </em>'s owners when they arrive in Nantucket, though Starbuck doubts they'll care much. They’ll have their oil and they’ll have their gold, no matter what blood spilled to get it.</p><p>"I had no choice," he says, joining Ahab on the couch.</p><p>
  <em> "If you believe that, then why are you spending all this time talking to yourself?" </em>
</p><p>Starbuck clenches his fists. He breathes in. And out.</p><p>"You would have killed us all."</p><p>
  <em> "Perhaps I would have." </em>
</p><p>A pause.</p><p>
  <em> "It was a sin." </em>
</p><p>"I know."</p><p>
  <em> "It was murder." </em>
</p><p>"I know."</p><p><em> "It was </em> wrong <em> ." </em></p><p>A sharp inhale.</p><p>"I know."</p><p>He meets the captain's eyes. They are bloodshot, glinting with sadness, with exhaustion, with life. Starbuck reaches up and brushes Ahab's blood-soaked hair from his forehead.</p><p>
  <em> "I loved you." </em>
</p><p>Starbuck breathes in. And out. Ahab does not.</p><p>"I know."</p><p>He looks away.</p><p>"It wouldn't have been enough."</p><p>There's a long silence.</p><p>
  <em> "Perhaps not." </em>
</p><p>Starbuck doesn't need to look back to know the captain is gone.</p><p> </p><p>They know they are close. Know that Nantucket is a week -- perhaps less, with a favorable wind -- away. A palpable excitement buzzes in the air, even amidst the Atlantic winter chill.</p><p>Starbuck makes his way slowly across the deck. Passes the gold doubloon, still nailed to the mainmast. The sea is calm, a fair wind from astern carrying them home, the sun high above piercing through light misting rain. He nods at his crew as he passes them by. Pip, that wayward, castaway child, sits huddled between Queequeg and his storyteller. That storyteller, that greenhand (though really, he could hardly be called a 'greenhand,’ at this point) looks up at Starbuck while he passes, gives him a soft, startlingly knowing smile, before turning away, lacing his hand with Queequeg’s.</p><p>Starbuck climbs onto the <em> Pequod's </em>bowsprit, leans forward against the whale skull lashed to her front.</p><p>He aches. Aches for his captain, for his wife, for his son, for his crew. Aches for what he lost and what he almost lost. The <em> Pequod </em>, crashing through the waves, sprays mist in his face and he clings tighter to the rigging as she goes.</p><p>Mostly, he just aches for home.</p><p>But he can taste the Nantucket sea air on his tongue. Can see his boy's hand waving, waving from that hill. Can feel the sea beneath him, calm and steady.</p><p>And for the first time in a long time, Starbuck smiles.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hope y'all are staying safe with everything &amp; hope y'all enjoy this.<br/>for those of you who don't know, i'm making a webcomic adaptation of moby dick! so if you like my stuff then you'll probably like that! you can check it out at <a href="http://mobydick-thecomic.com">mobydick-thecomic.com</a>; it updates with a new page every friday!<br/>stay healthy, stay safe, be gay, do crimes, and enjoy this angst.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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